My daughters, Jenna and Erika, were nine and eight when Beth and I
were married and she came into our lives as wife and stepmother. We had
dated for a couple years, so the family situation was not entirely new
to any of us. However, the subtleties and nuances of everyday living
together are different than dating. We all had a lot to learn about each
other.
The first weekend we were back from our honeymoon I came down to the
kitchen to make coffee before anyone else was awake, only to find a list
of ToDos, handwritten by Beth, neatly printed with checkboxes next to
each item, for each of us. I could see this was going to be a difference
for the girls, so I gathered the lists and waited for Beth to smell the
coffee and join me.
I waited for her to finish her first few sips of coffee (timing is
everything) and then I started the conversation by asking her if she had
gotten commitment from me or the girls on the work she had planned our
for us. She looked at me like I was from another planet. It's a look I
have become more comfortable with every year of our marriage, mostly
because some days it is well deserved.
I suggested to her that if we worked as a team with the girls to get
their buy-in on the things she wanted done, they would be more committed
to getting it done. Then, we would have to spend less time making sure
it got done. Her reply, "Geof, they are kids. We tell them what to do
and they should do it. What are you talking about?" After four years of
solo Agile Parenting, I could see we were going to have to get everyone
on the same page with this.
This is especially true
on Agile teams, where work is not planned to the same level. This
commitment is as important as it is subtle. Knowing when someone or a
team is committed to their work is not always that easy. To set the
stage for commitment, I find it important to think first about the
people who will do the work before you plan the work itself.
In today’s world,
projects that hope to create high-value, innovative products cannot be
effectively planned and managed this way.
In a traditional approach to managing the work of a project, the first
thing you do is define all the work to be done, estimate it, sequence
it, and then assign resources to the work, which builds the schedule and
budget. This scope-driven, work-centric approach can objectify people
and in extremes end up treating them like commoditized interchangeable
widgets. Our vernacular even indicates this -- they are called
resources.
Still, for every project, it is the work that delivers the value of
the project. So how can we do it differently and more effectively? What
if we reversed our approach and focused on the talent, the people who
will do the work, rather than focusing on the work? This may sound like
just a matter of semantics, but there is more to this subtle change of
perspective. Rather than assigning people to work (think traditional
waves of generic resources) we assign work to people (think SWAT team).
People, and more generally teams, now become the focus.
On our team of 60+ people, our leadership team holds a quarterly
face-to-face. The first topic on the agenda is always titled "Talent."
We discuss the entire staff, paying special attention to new team
members, required skill development, potential challenges, at-risk team
members and open requisitions. We know that if we have the right talent
we will have greater flexibility to handle the variety of work that is
planned and also be best prepared for the unplanned work. Our agility
becomes higher. In an environment of uncertainty and ambiguity, this is a
distinguishing element of our high performing team.
Once we have a shared understanding of the current needs and talents
of the team, then we are ready to start talking about the work. This
only makes sense, since the people that are going to do the work define
the capability and capacity to complete the work. People first, work
second. Lots of companies talk about how "our people are our greatest
asset," but if they continue to focus on the work first, this is little
more than a political promise.
We think of the whole team as a massive performance unit that exists
to produce business value. Keep it properly tuned and feed it with
appropriate guidance, direction, and the right work, and it will produce
higher-quality outcomes faster. From this perspective, we think more
about the movement of work through the team. Our job as leaders now
becomes making sure the team has the right work and support.
Yes, people still have work assignments and roles and
responsibilities; after all, the work doesn't get magically done without
the effort of people. But when you focus on the people, they have a
greater sense of ownership and commitment to a level of production that
is governed more by their talents and collective capacity than the
predefined work. Your commitment to them models their commitment to
their work. In this paradigm, almost anything is possible.
So, back to Beth's ToDo lists. I asked Beth to prioritize each list
(the backlog) and we agreed to an expected amount of time they should do
chores on a sunny summer morning in June (the sprint). When the girls
woke up, she asked for estimates for each work item (story points) and
then matched the prioritized work to the capacity (sprint planning). At
that point, all she had to do was ask for a personal commitment to
complete all the work before going out to play with their friends and
then sit back and accept the work as it got completed.
Truth be told, Beth was left a little cheated because she didn't get
everything she wanted from her original list. But the reality is that
her original list was unrealistic to begin with. (Is any of this
sounding familiar to your project planning process?) What she did get
was enthusiastic completion of her high-priority items and two engaged
stepdaughters who felt like they had a say in their work and were seen
as valued members of the household, and not marginalized laborers.
As for my ToDo list… well, we'll leave that for another article on negotiation skills.
